Category Archives: Official Gmail Blog

I’m one of those people who always cuts it close at the airport—it’s a race through security, with just enough time to grab the airline essentials: water bottle, magazine, a soft pretzel if I’m lucky. But I just learned that I can whip out Google Maps to find my way around the airport (by searching the airport name and terminal number), so I no longer waste time running around looking for my snack of choice.

For two decades, Google has built products that make my life more useful. Eight of these products now have a billion users, and with all that extra time at the airport, I got to thinking—how many other unknown tips and tricks are out there? Since Google is celebrating its 20th birthday this month, I present a party favor: tips on Google’s most-used products, straight from the people who helped build them.

Search

For lovers of covers:Try searching for a song and then tapping “other recordings” for different renditions.

Don’t burn daylight: Make the most of your daylight hours by knowing when the sun will go down. Search [sunset] to get the time the sun will set today.

For content connoisseurs:If you’re a fan of bingeable TV shows or a movie buff, you can see all the places to stream any show or film by searching [watch] followed by the title. (Head’s up: this is available in the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Germany and India).

Emily Moxley, Director of Product Management

Maps

Beat the crowds:Use Google Maps to find out the estimated wait times and popular times to visit your favorite restaurants and businesses.

Don’t get lost in the parking lot:If you’ve ever spent way too long searching for your parked car, this tip’s for you. After navigating to your destination, tap on the blue dot and then “Set as parking location” so you can always find your way back to your parking spot.

Quickest route to the airport snacks:If you’re flying to a new place, you can use Google Maps to help you find your way around an airport. A quick search for an airport terminal name, say “SFO Terminal 1,” will show you the lay of the land, including nearby gates, lounges, restaurants and stores.

Dane Glasgow, VP of Product

YouTube

Just add popcorn:Developed to cut down on glare and give you that movie theater experience, Dark Theme turns your background dark while you’re watching YouTube. It’s available on desktop, iOS and now rolling out to Android.

Pick your pace:Speed up or slow down the playback of a video by tapping on the three dots at the bottom right of any video.

Take a shortcut:While watching a YouTube video, use the numbered keys to seek in a video. For example, hitting “2” will take you 20 percent into the video, “6” will take you to 60 percent into the video, “0” will restart the video.

Brian Marquardt, Director of Product Management

Gmail

The ultimate to-do list: Open Tasks in your side panel within Gmail, then drag and drop emails to turn your messages into action items.

Shhhh:Declutter your inbox with Gmail’s mute feature, which pushes the entire conversation to your archive and any future conversations on the thread bypass your inbox to be automatically archived as well.

Take it back:Don’t fret over embarrassing typos, unintentional reply-alls, or other email taboos. In your Gmail settings, just implement a 5-30 second cancellation period on your sent emails and once you’ve fired one off, you’ll receive a prompt to “Undo.”

Kevin Smilak, Engineering Director

Google Drive

Give your docs a gold star:Find your favorite Drive items by starring your most important docs within the Drive main menu, and then bookmarking your Starred page.

File_name_V2:Freeze moments in time by naming different versions of the docs you edit frequently. In a Doc, Sheet, or Slides go to File > Version History > Name current version. Name any version then access it easily from "Version history" by name.

Your search is our command:Google Drive makes the text within all of the images and PDFs you upload searchable. Try searching for a phrase that you know is inside a picture or PDF, which is especially helpful when you can’t remember your filename.

Alexander Vogenthaler, Director of Product Management

Android

Lost and found:If you’ve misplaced your Android phone, Find My Device lets you locate it by signing into your Google account. Or you can call it directly from a browser by typing “find my device” on Google. Lock your phone remotely or display a message on the lock screen, so if someone finds it they know who to contact. If you’re convinced it’s lost for good, you can erase all your data.

Always reachable:Don’t miss any urgent phone calls and messages from important contacts like close family members or your child’s school, even when you have Do Not Disturb turned on. Just add a star to people that matter to you, and then allow calls and messages from “starred contacts only” in Do Not Disturb settings.

Use your voice:You can ask your Google Assistant to handle tasks on your Android phone (running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or later). Start by saying “OK Google,” then try “take a screenshot,” “turn on flashlight,” or “open WiFi setting.” You can even ask to “take a selfie”—this will open the camera app and start a countdown. Cheeeeeeeese.

Sagar Kamdar, Director of Product Management

Google Play

When you’re good with faces, but not names:Just hit pause on your movie, tap the circle around the actor or actress's face, and learn more about them and what other movies they’ve been in.

Read like a superhero: When you’re reading a comic on your phone, tap on a voice bubble and use your volume buttons to zoom in on the dialogue between two characters.

What you wish for:You can create a wishlist to keep track of items you want to install or purchase on Google Play.

Kara Bailey, Global Merchandising Director

Chrome

Access history across devices:Open Chrome and click on “History.” From the drop down menu, click “Full History” and “Tabs From Other Devices.” If you’re signed into the same Google account on both your phone and your computer, you’ll see the article you were just about to finish on your way into work.

Keeping tabs on your tabs:You can save eight days of time per year using keyboard shortcuts. Try this one in Chrome: jump between tabs at light speed by pressing Ctrl and the tab number you want to go to (i.e., Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3).

👀☝😀 = 🎉. Right-click in any text field for a shortcut to access emoji on any platform Chrome can be found.

Inbox by Gmail has been a great place to experiment with new ideas like snoozing emails to later, as well as try the latest AI-powered experiences like Smart Reply, Nudges and high-priority notifications to help you stay productive.

Four years after launching Inbox in 2014, we've learned a lot about how to make email better—and we’ve taken popular Inbox experiences and added them into Gmail to help more than a billion people get more done with their emails everyday. As we look to the future, we want to take a more focused approach that will help us bring the best email experience to everyone. As a result, we’re planning to focus solely on Gmail and say goodbye to Inbox by Gmail at the end of March 2019.

We introduced the new Gmail in April this year, incorporating many of the same features you’ve come to love about Inbox plus newer features like Smart Compose, which helps you draft emails faster. Read more about how these features in Gmail can help you manage your inbox better in this post.

We know change is hard, so we’ve created a transition guide to help you switch from Inbox to the new Gmail with ease. All your conversations are already waiting for you in Gmail. See you there.

We launched the new Gmail earlier this year and packed it with features to help you prioritize and accomplish things right from your inbox. And it’s a good thing too, because it’s estimated that we send and receive more than 100 emails a day.

With this volume, it can be tough to stay focused on what matters. Here are five ways the new Gmail can help you save time and get more done.

1. You can prioritize emails more easily.

How many times have you read an email and forgotten to respond? It’s easy to do. To help you remember, Gmail will “nudge” you to follow up or reply to messages by sharing a quick reminder next to the email. Powered by machine learning, it uses cues like frequent contacts and more to remind you to respond to stuff that’s higher priority.

Or if you have an email that you can’t get to right away, you can “Snooze” and choose how long before you see the message again.

2. You can write and reply to emails faster.

Sometimes it’s tough to put pen to, err … keyboard. So we’ve incorporated a new machine learning-powered feature in Gmail called Smart Compose, which suggests phrases to help you complete sentences in your emails so that you can draft them quicker.

And if you want to reply to emails quicker, you can use Smart Reply, which suggests responses at the bottom of a message—great for dealing with emails on the go.

3. You can work offline.

No internet access but have a lot to get done? We’ve got you covered. Enable Gmail’s offline mode to load, read, respond to and search your conversations even when you aren't connected to the internet. Simply type in “mail.google.com” in Chrome and you’re good to go.

4. You can get stuff done without leaving your inbox.

The new Gmail gives you quick access to apps you use often, like Google Calendar, Keep and Tasks without leaving your inbox. You can even find more Add-ons to download and customize your inbox. One fun one to check out is the Gyfcat Add-on, because sometimes this is the only appropriate way to end an email.

5. It helps you keep your information safe.

Ever accidentally clicked into a sketchy email? Gmail helps you avoid spammers by proactively warning you when something looks phish-y. If you try to click into a potential spam or phishing message, you’ll get a big, red alert that tells you it looks dangerous.

The new Gmail, now available for everyone, is smarter and easier to use so your inbox can help you do more at home or at work. Looking for more? Check out this hidden gem for tips on how to stay even more productive at the workplace.

Email makes it easy to share information with just about anyone—friends, colleagues and family—but drafting a message can take some time. Last year, we introduced Smart Reply in Gmail to help you quickly reply to incoming emails. Today, we're announcing Smart Compose, a new feature powered by artificial intelligence, to help you draft emails from scratch, faster.

Draft emails quickly with confidence

From your greeting to your closing (and common phrases in between), Smart Compose suggests complete sentences in your emails so that you can draft them with ease. Because it operates in the background, you can write an email like you normally would, and Smart Compose will offer suggestions as you type. When you see a suggestion that you like, click the “tab” button to use it.

Smart Compose helps save you time by cutting back on repetitive writing, while reducing the chance of spelling and grammatical errors. It can even suggest relevant contextual phrases. For example, if it's Friday it may suggest "Have a great weekend!" as a closing phrase.

Get started

Over the next few weeks, Smart Compose will appear in the new Gmail for consumers, and will be made available for G Suite customers in the workplace in the coming months.

To get started, make sure you’ve enabled the new Gmail by going to Settings > “Try the new Gmail.” Next, go to the general tab in your settings, scroll down and enable “experimental access.” If you want to switch back, you can always uncheck the box.

Since the beginning, our aim with G Suite has been to help companies transform the way they work with our suite of cloud-based collaboration and productivity apps.

Today we’re announcing major updates to help the more than 4 million paying businesses that use G Suite work safer, smarter and more efficiently. This includes an all-new Gmail, with a brand new look on the web, advanced security features, new applications of Google’s artificial intelligence and even more integrations with other G Suite apps. We’re also introducing a new way to manage work on the go with Tasks.

Keep sensitive data secure with new Gmail security features

Keeping your data secure is our top priority, which is why last month, we introduced new phishing protections to help address Business Email Compromise (BEC) threats—or when someone impersonates an executive to get sensitive information. With these new protections, Gmail has helped block 99.9 percent of BEC attempts by warning users or automatically moving messages to spam for them.

Today, we’re introducing a new approach to information protection: Gmail confidential mode. With confidential mode, it’s possible to protect sensitive content in your emails by creating expiration dates or revoking previously sent messages. Because you can require additional authentication via text message to view an email, it’s also possible to protect data even if a recipient’s email account has been hijacked while the message is active.

New confidential mode in Gmail lets you set expiration dates for sensitive information.

Built-in Information Rights Management (IRM) controls also allow you to remove the option to forward, copy, download or print messages. This helps reduce the risk of confidential information being accidentally shared with the wrong people. Confidential mode will begin to roll out to consumer Gmail users and a limited number of G Suite customers in the coming weeks (broader rollout following).

We’ve also redesigned our security warnings within Gmail so that they are simpler to understand and give a clear call to action to employees. These bigger, bolder warnings will help you be even more informed when it comes to potentially risky email.

And it’s always worth a reminder: we do not scan Gmail for the purposes of targeting ads, and there are no ads shown in Gmail for G Suite customers.

Stay on top of email effortlessly using artificial intelligence in Gmail

New AI-powered features in Gmail, like Nudging, Smart Reply and high-priority notifications, can now help you spend more time on work that matters.

Most of us get more emails than we can deal with at one time, and sometimes things slip through the cracks. With Nudging, Gmail will proactively remind you to follow up or respond to messages, making sure you don’t drop the ball.

Now Gmail will intelligently (and subtly) “nudge” you when you need to prioritize actions in your inbox.

Last year, we introduced Smart Reply to our Gmail mobile apps. Smart Reply processes hundreds of millions of messages daily and already drives more than 10 percent of email replies on mobile. Today we’re bringing Smart Reply to Gmail on the web to help you respond to messages faster.

New notifications on mobile help you stay focused on what’s important (and eliminate clutter, too.).

We’re also introducing new features on mobile to help you minimize interruptions and clutter. High-priority notifications is a new setting that only notifies you of important messages, keeping interruptions to a minimum. Gmail can also recommend when to unsubscribe from mailing lists. Using intelligence, unsubscribe suggestions appear based on cues like how many emails you get from a sender and how many of them you actually read. You’ll start to see these notifications show up in your inbox over the coming weeks.

Over the past few months, Salesforce has tested the new Gmail to collaborate on global projects. “As the global leader in CRM, the ability to quickly and securely communicate with our stakeholders around the world is critical,” says Jo-ann Olsovsky, executive vice president and chief information officer of Salesforce. “Gmail’s new easy-to-use interface and built-in intelligence enable our employees to collaborate faster and smarter, spending less time managing their inboxes and more time driving our customers’ success.”

Accomplish more from your inbox with easy-to-use tools

We redesigned the Gmail web application to help you take action even quicker. Now you can see and click attachments in your inbox before ever opening a thread. You can also hover over messages (you don’t have to click into them) to do things like RSVP to a meeting invite, archive an email thread or snooze an email until the time is right.

Gmail’s new design helps you take action quicker.

As a part of the redesign, we’re also tightly integrating Gmail with other G Suite apps you use every day. Now you can quickly reference, create or edit Calendar invites, capture ideas in Keep or manage to-dos in Tasks all from a side panel in your inbox.

The side panel also makes it easy to access Gmail Add-ons, too, like third-party business apps you might use. This way you don’t have to switch between tabs or apps to get work done. You’ll start to see the new side panel integration in other G Suite apps in coming months—like inside of your Calendar, Docs, Sheets and Slides apps.

Use the new side panel in Gmail to access all of your favorite G Suite apps, like Google Calendar.

New native offline capabilities in Gmail on the web can help you work without interruption when you can’t find Wi-Fi. Search, write, respond, delete, or archive up to 90 days of messages, just as you would working online, but offline. Teams can start using offline capabilities in coming weeks.

Track projects and meet deadlines with Tasks’ refreshed design on the web and brand new mobile apps.

Like we mentioned, we’re introducing an all-new Tasks on web, as well as new mobile apps to help you handle work on the go. You can use Tasks to create tasks and subtasks, and even add due dates with notifications to help you stay on track.

And because Tasks closely integrates with G Suite, you can simply drag and drop an email from Gmail into Tasks to create a to-do. Tasks with due dates can also appear in your Calendar.

The all-new Gmail experience is available for businesses to start using today in the G Suite Early Adopter Program (EAP) and can be turned on in the Admin console. Heads up: you’ll start to see offline support, confidential mode (limited release), Nudging, high-priority notifications and unsubscribe suggestions appear in the coming weeks. Keep up with the latest news on these features in the G Suite Updates blog.

Personal Gmail users can opt-in to the new experience, too (Go to Settings in the top right and select “Try the new Gmail.”).

Email is a necessity for most of us. We use it to stay in touch with colleagues and friends, keep up with the latest news, manage to-dos at home or at work—we just can’t live without it. Today we announced major improvements to Gmail on the web to help people be more productive at work. Here’s a quick look at how the new Gmail can help you accomplish more from your inbox.

Do more without leaving your inbox

Gmail’s new look helps you get more done. Click on attachments—like photos—without opening or scrolling through large conversations, use the new snooze button to put off emails that you just can’t get to right now or easily access other apps you use often, like Google Calendar, Tasks and Keep.

Gmail will also “nudge” you to follow up and respond to messages with quick reminders that appear next to your email messages to help make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

We’re also adding Smart Reply to Gmail on the web to help you reply to messages faster.

New features on mobile, like high-priority notifications, can notify you of important messages to help you stay focused without interruption. Plus, Gmail will start suggesting when to unsubscribe from newsletters or offers you no longer care about.

And you might notice new warnings in Gmail that alert you when potentially risky email comes through.

Finally, a new confidential mode allows you to remove the option to forward, copy, download or print messages—useful for when you have to send sensitive information via email like a tax return or your social security number. You can also make a message expire after a set period of time to help you stay in control of your information.

Get started

You can start using these new updates in Gmail on the web today, with some features appearing within the coming weeks. Go to Settings (the cog wheel in the top right corner of your inbox) and select “Try the new Gmail.” If you want to switch back later down the road, you can go to the same place and select “Go back to classic Gmail.”

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use Gmail in the workplace, check out our G Suite post which has more detail on all of the ways Gmail can help you stay productive.

For many of us, email is mission control—the prompt to generate an invoice, prepare a presentation or follow up on a sales opportunity. With so many to-dos, imagine if you could complete these tasks directly from your inbox without interrupting your workflow.

We believe email can do more, which is why we’re launching Gmail Add-ons, a new way to work with your favorite business apps directly in Gmail.

Gmail Add-ons, built for your workflows

Rather than toggling between your inbox and other apps, use add-ons to complete actions right from Gmail. With Gmail Add-ons, your inbox can contextually surface your go-to app based on messages you receive to help you get things done faster. And because add-ons work the same across web and Android, you only need to install them once to access them on all of your devices. Click the settings wheel on the top right of your inbox and then “Get add-ons” to get started.

We made Gmail Add-ons available in developer preview earlier this year, and since then, our partners have built integrations to help businesses connect with customers, track projects, facilitate invoicing and more. Here’s a list of partners that have built Gmail Add-ons you can install today:

Asana: Turn communication with clients, customers and teammates into tasks that can be tracked with your team in Asana, all from your inbox.

Dialpad: Message or call colleagues on your device, any time. Automatically view recent communications or save a new contact straight from Gmail.

DocuSign(coming soon): Sign and execute contracts, agreements and other documents directly in Gmail using the DocuSign add-on.

Hire: Add candidates, manage candidate information and upload resumes without leaving Gmail. You can access full job applications from the Hire add-on.

Intuit QuickBooks Invoicing: Create and send professional invoices directly in Gmail. Let customers pay you online and track invoice status and payments no matter where you are.

ProsperWorks: Easily access prospect or customer data, and log activities from calls, demos and meetings. You can also scan related opportunities, tasks and events.

We work hard to help protect your company against phishing attacks—from using machine learning, to tailoring our detection algorithms, to building features to spot previously unseen attacks. While we block as many external attacks as we can, we continue to build and offer features designed to empower IT administrators to develop strong internal defenses against phishing.

Here are seven things we recommend admins do in G Suite to better protect employee data.

G Suite also supports user-managed security keys—easy to use hardware authenticators. Admins can choose to enforce the use of security keys to help reduce the risk of stolen credentials being used to compromise an account. The key sends an encrypted signature and works only with authorized sites. Security keys can be deployed, monitored and managed directly from within the Admin console.

2. Deploy Password Alert extension for Chrome

The Password Alert chrome extension checks each page that users visit to see if that page is impersonating Google’s sign-in page and notifies admins if users enter their G Suite credentials anywhere other than the Google sign-in page.

Admins can also enable password alert auditing, send email alerts and enforce a password change policy when G Suite credentials have been used on a non-trusted website such as a phishing site.

3. Allow only trusted apps to access your data

Take advantage of OAuth apps whitelisting to specify which apps can access your users’ G Suite data. With this setting, users can grant access to their G Suite apps’ data only to whitelisted apps. This prevents malicious apps from tricking users into accidentally granting unauthorized access. Apps can be whitelisted by admins in the Admin console under G Suite API Permissions.

4. Publish a DMARC policy for your organization

To help your business avoid damage to its reputation from phishing attacks and impersonators, G Suite follows the DMARC standard. DMARC empowers domain owners to decide how Gmail and other participating email providers handle unauthenticated emails coming from your domain. By defining a policy and turning on DKIM email signing, you can ensure that emails that claim to be from your organization, are actually from you.

5. Disable third-party email client access for those who don't need it

The Gmail clients (Android, iOS, Web) leverage Google Safe Browsing to incorporate anti-phishing security measures such as disabling suspicious links and attachments and displaying warnings to users to deter them from clicking on suspicious links.

By choosing to disable POP and IMAP, Google Sync and G Suite Sync for Microsoft Outlook, admins can ensure that a significant portion of G Suite users will only use Gmail clients and benefit from the built-in phishing protections that they provide. Additional measures include enabling OAuth apps whitelisting to block third-party clients as suggested earlier in the blog.

Note: all third-party email clients, including native mobile mail clients, will stop working if the measures outlined above are implemented.

6. Encourage your team to pay attention to external reply warnings

By default, Gmail clients (Android, Web) warn G Suite users if they’re responding to emails sent from outside their domain by someone they don’t regularly interact with, or from someone not in their contacts. This helps businesses protect against forged emails, from malicious actors or just plain old user-error like sending an email to the wrong contact. Educate your employees to look for these warnings and be careful before responding to unrecognized senders. Unintended external reply warnings are controlled from the Admin console control in the “Advanced Gmail” setting.

7. Enforce the use of Android work profiles

Work profiles allow you to separate your organization's apps from personal apps, keeping personal and corporate data separate. By using integrated device management within G Suite to enforce the use of work profiles, you can whitelist applications that access corporate data and block installation of apps from unknown sources. You now have complete control over which apps have access to your corporate data.

These steps can help you improve your organization’s security posture and become more resistant to phishing attacks. Learn more at gsuite.google.com/security or sign up for our security webinar on September 20, 2017 which features new security research from Forrester and a demonstration on how the cloud can help effectively combat cyber threats.

If you work in a regulated industry like healthcare, legal or finance, you might be familiar with regulations relating to HIPAA, CJIS and CFPB, and understand how important it is to protect sensitive data. In order to help you meet your obligations, you might need specific tools.

Gmail already offers world-class security protections like encryption through Transport Layer Security (TLS), but Virtru for G Suite is a simple way to help dually secure proprietary information included in your email communications. Virtru integrates client-side encryption directly into Gmail and G Suite, so you don’t have to worry about your emails or attachments falling into the wrong hands.

Why Premier Healthcare Services chose Virtru for G Suite

Premier Healthcare Services is a provider of skilled and unskilled in-home health services. The company uses Virtru for G Suite to securely send sensitive client information, and chose the encryption service because it was easy to install and intuitive to use for anyone familiar with Gmail.

Using Virtru for G Suite, Premier Health administrators can revoke access, manage forwarding and watermarking of attachments, and control access to documents and their expiration. Premier Health IT administrators can also set data loss prevention (DLP) rules to encrypt data to help employees remain HIPAA compliant, even when they share information with parties outside of their domain.

To stay on top of their data security, they can also monitor a variety of activities within the Virtru Admin Dashboard, like when and where emails are forwarded and when DLP rules are triggered.

If you work in a regulated industry like healthcare, legal or finance, you might be familiar with regulations relating to HIPAA, CJIS and CFPB, and understand how important it is to protect sensitive data. In order to help you meet your obligations, you might need specific tools.

Gmail already offers world-class security protections like encryption through Transport Layer Security (TLS), but Virtru for G Suite is a simple way to help dually secure proprietary information included in your email communications. Virtru integrates client-side encryption directly into Gmail and G Suite, so you don’t have to worry about your emails or attachments falling into the wrong hands.

Why Premier Healthcare Services chose Virtru for G Suite

Premier Healthcare Services is a provider of skilled and unskilled in-home health services. The company uses Virtru for G Suite to securely send sensitive client information, and chose the encryption service because it was easy to install and intuitive to use for anyone familiar with Gmail.

Using Virtru for G Suite, Premier Health administrators can revoke access, manage forwarding and watermarking of attachments, and control access to documents and their expiration. Premier Health IT administrators can also set data loss prevention (DLP) rules to encrypt data to help employees remain HIPAA compliant, even when they share information with parties outside of their domain.

To stay on top of their data security, they can also monitor a variety of activities within the Virtru Admin Dashboard, like when and where emails are forwarded and when DLP rules are triggered.